VOC Capital Management, an investment management company focusing on commodities investments, has begun operating in London.

In August the company will launch the Cayman Islands domiciled VOC Capital Commodity Alpha Fund which will also be available as a managed account. VOC has produced a series of proprietary investment strategies and intends to use them across a diverse range of commodity futures including precious metals, base metals, softs, energy, grains and livestock. These strategies will be combined into a broadly market neutral portfolio.

Founder of VOC Capital is Christiaen van Lanschot, former head of commodities investment in Europe and Asia at AIG. During his time at AIG, he and his team were active in building the group's commodities sector.

"I feel now is the perfect time to be launching a new investment management firm. Following the turmoil in the world's financial markets in the past year, investors are looking for new liquid investment opportunities and asset classes that will diversify their risk and have the potential to provide them with non-correlated returns away from equities and fixed income," said van Lanschot.

VOC has targeted returns for the fund at 20% year with a volatility of 12.5%. The fund is also expects to raise $50-$100 million in its first year.

The start up cost of the manager and the fund has been financed by the company partners who have invested $5 million.

The fund will have daily independent net asset value (NAV) calculated by Butterfield Fulcrum, the fund's administrator. It intends to list on the Irish Stock Exchange. KPMG is the auditor and Newedge providing brokerage.

VOC is targeting institutional investors. The fund has a minimum investment of $1 million.